Eat, Drink and Be Messy

Once, upon a thyme leaf,
There lived a lazy snail,
Who munched and dozed, and dozed and munched,
On thyme he breakfasted and lunched,
And when it came to half past nine,
He chose once more to dine on thyme.

Later, upon the thyme leaf,
Was a rather plumper snail.
But, reader dear, his life was brief,
For this is no fairy tale.

He ate more and more, and grew fatter and fatter
Until one day he exploded, bang, splat, splatter.
One minute he was there,
The next he'd gone.
The coroner's verdict
'A snail thyme bomb'.

The Lazy Snail

'Eat, Drink and Be Messy' is a rather silly poem and, at 16 lines, quite a long one as well. It is, however, a good poem to recite and, for those feeling especially clever, to learn by heart. The things that make it a good recitation poem are the rhythm, the abundant rhymes, both at the ends and within the lines, and the fact its really quite funny, if a little bit gory at the end.